Pikachu's Labyrinth
by Hunnkanin
Summary: There were a million things left to do before the curtain fell. A wonderful balled played, a symphony uninterrupted. There was applause and encores, flowers and cheers.  But Pikachu stood backstage, unable to continue without his cast. Without Ash.


It was a horrible

Day;

Almost like the curtain fall

After

the beginning. Surely no

Day

could be worse. Only the

Will

Of the sun could deny

This

Sudden night, the decay of

Ever 

-shining light. But he knew twilight wouldn't

End.

Snow padded thick underneath the palm of soft yellow skin. A wind howled onward, drowning all evidence of the small Pikachu that trudged alone in an almost dazed-like manner, his form bending from Nature's unfair gesture. A white haze was all Pikachu could see, it was all he felt; Ice formed on the tips of his ears, at the base of his heart, for even the brave partner of Kanto's famous young Master could only take so much tragedy. For when all was lost, so was the loyal mouse. Never could he return to what never came back.

The blanket of snow became a thin layer of frost, softly kissing the ground where the most important memory was made; A memory filled with goodbye, though the other pikachus played in the forest no longer. He was almost disappointed of being unable to see his old friends. Would they have remembered him, anyways?

Never-dying trees swayed under the fading winter, and soon all was green and blue. The grass danced with every breath of spring, and pidgies were singing for rain. Pikachu sat on a familiar looking cut log, laced with scars and beauty. Visions that flickered in a charmander's small flame.

In the distance, the cries of ships kept tempo for the city of Vermilion. Pikachu moved onwards, and with every step brought the heat wave of Summer. More memories, more confusion. Pikachu halted, wanting so desperately to remove himself from the equation of Autumn with it's flame-dyed leaves and the swell of fatigue it spit down with rain. Rust bled through the sky.

Bled.

_Oh, _Pikachu thought, heaving himself onwards, trying to hide himself from the past that fallowed him in every waking moment. Too much process, too much agony. He was carried forward, but never could he move onwards. It was with the second arrival of winter he finally found his place of pleasure in the tranquility of a quiet town he'd wandered a thousand times.

Pallet was so different when it drew it's year's end. Townsmen didn't line the streets, and kids didn't run the gravel with their bikes. Pokemon no longer gazed from the wooden fences of Oak's lab, for they were hiding from the cold.

_Hiding._

Was that not exactly what he himself was doing?  
Was he running from this?

Running from

Ash? 

It was as if, though well-worn from hiking the flowing path of his old adventures, his feet knew exactly where to take him. Beads of water clung to his ragged pelt, the one he hadn't cleaned in decades. There had been no use, for every day was as though he was in someone else's skin. Someone else's life.

It had been an aging morning when his unexpected journey began, a journey that ended too soon, in the darkest corner of Unova. Ash died for a life with Pikachu.

Pikachu was willing to die for a life with Ash.

This life that Pikachu lived now was nothing. He sat in the deepest pit of his soul, reaching for the sun. Reaching for the warmth, for anything. But it was gone, melted away in the night, the brilliant shade of black that had eaten away the leather of Pikachu's paws, the tears that his eyes could no longer shed. He wanted to cry, to embrace those places, those times. Ash's death was in vain, but Pikachu made sure Team Plasma lost. He made sure.

Was Ash proud?  
Was he disappointed?  
Did he know how much Pikachu missed him?  
Did he want to see

Pikachu

too?

There were many memories of watching the sunrise with Ash, but this was a whole different experience. It blossomed with petals of streaming light, as though stretching its arms for anything, to swallow something into its existence. Suddenly the sun burst into life, shaping, coloring, welcoming. Like the night into day, like the winter into spring, like Ash into nothingness. Pikachu stood on a flower bathed grave, staring at the sky, realizing it's been many more than two years since his last curtain call.

It's been two lifetimes;

The life of a shaggy haired boy,

And his loyal, shaggy haired Pikachu.

Pikachu swallowed his pride, and ended the encore. With a lasting look at the rising rays, Pikachu rest his gaze on the sight of half a Pokeball at the base of the headstone, laying against a full but aged one that Ash had not once sent to be cared under the confidence of Professor Oak.

It didn't take much, just a gentle tap with his brown nose for him to be swallowed by the pleasant red.

Red, everywhere.

Warmth, too.  
Whenever he saw Ash again,

Would he be warm,  
too?


End file.
